Category Archives: Science And Society

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The “Planetary Emergency”

18 Comments

Has the IPCC implicitly called it off? Yes.

[Update a few minutes later]

More from Judy Curry. But expect AlGore to continue to be anti-science.

[Update a few minutes more later]

More from Andrew Montford:

The real story may not be in the IPCC rowback on temperature ranges, or its cack-handed “explanations” for the stalling temperatures. It may in fact all be in this table. Be sure to look for yourself. Every single catastrophic scenario bar one has a rating of “Very unlikely” or “Exceptionally unlikely” and/or has “low confidence”. The only disaster scenario that the IPCC consider at all likely in the possible lifetimes of many of us alive now is “Disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice”, which itself has a ‘likely’ rating and liable to occur by mid century with medium confidence. As the litany of climate disasters go, that’s it.

This prompted me to put a question to him, which was the first I’d been able to raise via the chair all day (I’d tried in several talks). I said to Matt:

“What the IPCC says, and what the media says it says are poles apart. Your talk is a perfect example of this. Low liklihood and low confidence for almost every nightmare scenario. Yet this isn’t reflected at all in the media. Many people here have expressed concern at the influence of climate sceptics. Wouldn’t climate scientists’ time be better spent reining in those in the media producing irresponsible, hysterical, screaming headlines?”

Tumbleweed followed for several seconds. Then Matt said:

“Not my responsibility”.

No. Of course not.

General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Peer Review

3 Comments

“…is sick and collapsing under its own weight.”

The biggest problem, he says, is the anonymity granted to reviewers, who are often competing fiercely for priority with authors they are reviewing. “What would be their reason to do it quickly?” Tracz asks. “Why would they not steal” ideas or data?

Anonymous review, Tracz notes, is the primary reason why months pass between submission and publication of findings. “Delayed publishing is criminal; it’s nonsensical,” he says. “It’s an artifact from an irrational, almost religious belief” in the peer-review system.

Climaquiddick was a particularly egregious case of it, but the whole system is broken. And this is what leads to so much crap science, not just in climate, but in nutrition and other areas. It doesn’t get properly reviewed or argued.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

John Kerry And The IPCC Report

3 Comments

No, Mr. Secretary, it is not “science”:

I have been publishing comparisons of data with climate models outputs for about two years. The climate models used by the IPCC clearly cannot simulate Earth’s surface temperatures, precipitation or sea ice area. Additionally, there are numerous scientific research papers that are very critical of how climate models perform specific functions. Looking at those papers independently, the faults do not appear too bad, but collectively they indicate the models are fatally flawed.

In my book Climate Models Fail, I have collected my past findings about climate models, and illustrated others, and I’ve presented highlights from the research papers critical of climate models. I would be happy to forward a link to a free copy of Climate Models Fail to your offices for your personal use. Please have one of your staff members leave a comment at my blog Climate Observations if that interests you.

I’m quite confident that it won’t interest the fool.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Your Hockey Stick

4 Comments

Time to get it tied:

Eschewing procreation in order to spread their message only through conversion? Well, it worked for the Shakers…

Meanwhile, Joe Bastardi is upset at Michael Mann’s slam at Judith Curry (among others). James Taranto is entertained by the vasectomizing twit:

Ed Driscoll has a lot more.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Diagnosing the IPCC

2 Comments

It’s suffering from permanent paradigm paralysis, and it’s time to put it down:

Paradigm paralysis is the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking. The vast amount of scientific and political capital invested in the IPCC has become self-reinforcing, so it is not clear how move past this paralysis as long as the IPCC remains in existence. The wickedness of the climate change problem makes if difficult to identify points of irrefutable failure in either the science or the policies, although the IPCC’s insistence that the pause is irrelevant and temporary could provide just such a refutation if the pause continues. In any event, there is a growing realization of that neither the science or policy efforts are making much progress, and particularly in view of the failure climate models to predict the stagnation in warming, and that perhaps it is time to step back and see if we can do a better job of understanding and predicting climate variability and change and reducing societal and ecosystem vulnerabilities.

Read the whole thing.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

95% Certainty From The IPCC

13 Comments

Thoughts from Judith Curry:

Yesterday, a reporter asked me how the IPCC came up with the 95% number. Here is the exchange that I had with him:

Reporter: I’m hoping you can answer a question about the upcoming IPCC report. When the report states that scientists are “95 percent certain” that human activities are largely to cause for global warming, what does that mean? How is 95 percent calculated? What is the basis for it? And if the certainty rate has risen from 90 n 2007 to 95 percent now, does that mean that the likelihood of something is greater? Or that scientists are just more certain? And is there a difference?

JC: The 95% is basically expert judgment, it is a negotiated figure among the authors. The increase from 90-95% means that they are more certain. How they can justify this is beyond me.

Reporter: You mean they sit around and say, “How certain are you?” ”Oh, I feel about 95 percent certain. Michael over there at Penn State feels a little more certain. And Judy at Georgia Tech feels a little less. So, yeah, overall I’d say we’re about 95 percent certain.” Please tell me it’s more rigorous than that.

JC: Well I wasn’t in the room, but last report they said 90%, and perhaps they felt it was appropriate or politic that they show progress and up it to 95%.

Reporter: So it really is as subjective as that?

JC: As far as I know, this is what goes on. All this has never been documented.

JC conclusion: Well, I have no idea what goes on in the sausage factory. 95% – take it with a grain of salt (or a stiff whiskey). That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. Uncertain T. Monster is not happy.

I don’t know what this is, but sure as hell isn’t science.

[Update a while later]

A round up of initial reactions, for policy makers.

The general theme of obscurantism runs across the document. Whereas in previous years the temperature records have been shown unadulterated, now we have presentation of a single figure for each decade; surely an attempt to mislead rather than inform. And the pause is only addressed with handwaving arguments and vague allusions to ocean heat.

It was a blown opportunity to set the record straight.

[Update a few minutes later]

From comments: “SPM in a nutshell: Since we started in 1990 we were right about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about the surface, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And on that basis we’re 95% confident we’re right.”

[Bumped]